


Gloria!

by DarthNickels



Series: Deific Decree [2]
Category: Daredevil (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: A bit of the old ultraviolence, A very fast and loose alternate take on the Defenders, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe, Fake Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Homelessness, M/M, Sequel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-30
Packaged: 2019-07-11 06:36:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15966746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarthNickels/pseuds/DarthNickels
Summary: One year later, and Matt Murdock is busy as a dead man can be. Foggy tries to make sense of everything he left behind. For both of them, the work is all-consuming and endless-- but their paths won't diverge for much longer.





	1. Melting Pot of Thieves

**BLIND LAWYER PRESUMED DEAD IN ROXXON FIRE**  
Rising Star at Landman  & Zack Only Casualty of Blaze

NYFD has released the name of the only suspected casualty of the fire that tore through the West Unit labs one week ago: Matthew Michael Murdock, a recent graduate of Columbia Law and star employee at the prestigious Landman & Zack law firm. Murdock was last seen en route to Roxxon’s West Unit laboratories to deliver paperwork in the ongoing court case related to allegations of illegal dumping and improper waste disposal. Murdock, a longtime resident of the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood, was best known for the boyhood act of heroism that cost him his sight […]

[…] Murdock is the last person unaccounted for, and is assumed to have perished in the fire, but authorities confirmed they have yet to recover his remains[...]

* * *

 

               “Aw, come on man, you don’t hafta do that.”

               The man looks at him—or at least, Daniel thinks he does; its hard to tell through the matter curtain of hair that falls in front of his eyes.

               “You don’t hafta eat out of the trash,” Daniel goes on, trying not to get creeped out by the man’s unfocused stare. “I can getcha something from inside. You wanna hotdog?”

               The man cocked his head, as though looking for something out on the street—no, more like he was turning his ear towards him—

               “Dock your wages,” the man grunted. His voice sounded rusty, like he didn’t use it all that much. “Lose your job.”

               “What? Oh—nah, man, don’t worry about that. My old man owns this place, I get one free hotdog a day. You know how fuckin _sick_ I am of fuckin hotdogs? Please, let me give you one. If I gotta choke down one more dog I’ll puke. How you want it?”

               The man didn’t answer.

               “C’mon, you want ketchup or mustard or both?”

               The man seemed to consider this for a long time. He turned from the dumpster, took a step forward—and Daniel thought maybe this was a bad fucking idea—

               “Both,” the man grated. Then, even rustier: “please.”

               “That’s the magic word, man! Gimme a sec, I’ll be right back.”

* * *

 

               Across the city, Foggy Nelson was also having breakfast.

               With one hand he was picking off bites from a blueberry muffin, while he took quick notes with the other. He used his shoulder to keep the phone pinned to his ear.

               “OK. OK. I think that’s a good place to start. Come in later today and we’ll talk the particulars of your case, see what we can do for you. OK—thank you, that’s very kind of you—that’s why we’re here—”

               Foggy very graciously listened to the man’s profuse thanks, before gently disentangling himself from the conversation. He set the phone back on the cradle with a click, and grabbed his coffee as if afraid it would ring again before he had a chance to imbibe.

               “C’mon, bean juice, do your stuff—” he muttered into his cup before taking a long, blissful sip. “Give me strength for today.”

               It had been almost a year now since he’d quit Landman and Zack, filled his pockets with bagels and bid a sad adieu to the world of swanky suits and stiletto heels. Just looking at his desk now, you wouldn’t know the difference—here he was, crammed into a closet masquerading as an office, surrounded by stacks of files and some precariously-balanced filing boxes.

               But the difference between the content of those files here and Hell’s Kitchen Legal Clinic and in the labyrinthine offices of L&Z was like night and day.

               _I thought you wanted to help people_. Well, here he was, helping away. And it was good work—sure, it was frustrating and exhausting, and sometimes it forced him to stare into the abyss of human cruelty while that abyss took a good, long look back at him— but at the end of the day he _did_ feel like one of the good guys, and that was worth more than all the leather-interior beemers in the world.

               Well, worth more than like, _two_ of them.

               In any case, it seemed like he got off the good ship L&Z just before it hit some choppy waters—Foggy had been following the papers off and on following the whole Roxxon coverup scandal, and not a single one of his former colleagues came out unscathed. The timing of it was honestly a little spooky—it was almost like someone up there was watching out for him.

               Which like, thanks for the assist, but Foggy did alright. He wasn’t the one they should have been keeping an eye on.

               He pushed aside a stack of papers, unburying a small framed photo on his desk.

               _Let me get this straight—you bought a copy of my graduation photo for me, a guy who can’t see it?_

               “Yeah, I did, asshole,” Foggy said, smiling ruefully. “Money well spent.”

               He didn’t need to drop the coin—in just a few years months after their graduation every newspaper in the tri-state area would be running a copy of that picture, under a headline screaming BLIND LAWYER DIES IN ROXXON FIRE. Foggy would likely see this image a thousand times today—Matt smiling awkwardly, as if uncomfortable with all the attention.

               “Don’t look at me like that,” Foggy said, “it’s your fault I’m here and not going to a very glamorous white-collar prison. I could be having mimosas with Marth Stewart—yeah, I _know_ she’s not locked up anymore, but it’s the _principle_ of the thing—”

               The picture of Matt was fixed and silent. It did not answer back.

               It never did.

               “Miss you buddy,” Foggy murmured. “You’d love this shit, you fucking masochist. Wish you were here.” He ran his thumb fondly along the edge of the frame.

               One year ago today. Time goes fast.

               “I wish a lot of things were difference. I wish—" 

               “You shouldn’t talk to yourself in there, my boy,” a voice came from the other side of the wall. “It makes you sound like a lunatic.”

               “Thank you, Mr. Hart,” Foggy shouted back, rolling his eyes.

               “Of course, you were already quite insane when you started here—”

               “—so you’re not liable for any damages stemming from my decreased mental wellbeing, yes, I know,” Foggy continued, good-naturedly. “Listen, boss, we’ve got a full slate today, so if you’d like to actually come here and _talk_ to me like decent people we can get started—"   

* * *

                      The man was back. He’d been in and out for the past few weeks—not every day, sometimes not for four or five days in a row, but regular enough that Daniel kept an eye out for him. He never asked for anything—but he wouldn’t come back if he wasn’t hoping for an offer.

               “You know there’s like, shelters and shit right?” Daniel ventured, cautiously. “They can help you out.”

               The man shook his head, making the matted strands of hair that fell in his face sway back and forth. “Don’t need help. Appreciate the dogs, though.”

               “Man…” Daniel weighed his words carefully. “Look, its none of my business, but you don’t _look_ like you’re doin fine. You look like _dogshit_ , man.”

               He braced himself for an onslaught, but the man only cracked a smile—small and secretive, but the first one Daniel had seen from him. “That’s a mistake,” the man croaked. “Trusting your eyes too much.”

               “Is that from Star Wars or something?”

               “Or something,” the man replied, and wouldn’t elaborate.

               “Whatever, it’s your life,” Daniel shrugged. “But I’m gonna letcha know, all that processed pork is gonna _fuck you up_ inside. You know, we got some relish that’s about to go—you want some relish? Mix a fuckin vegetable up in there, for your colon and shit—"

* * *

 

               “Knock knock.”

               Foggy looked up from his reading, startled—“Claire! What’s the news from downstairs?”

               “Lotta doom, lotta gloom. How about up here?”

               “Not any better,” Foggy replied, cheerfully. “You wanna grab a late lunch?”

               “Foggy, it’s almost eight o’clock.”  

               Foggy glanced at his wrist. “Holy shit, look at that. How about dinner?”

               “How about a beer?” Claire asked, eyebrow raised. “You look like you need several.”

               “And here I can’t get shit from my GP,” Foggy replied, shoveling papers in his briefcase. “I concur with your diagnosis. Heal me, Great Asclepius, lay your snake-rod on me, administer to me your soothing cordials.”

               “I’m going to administer you a _heavy_ sedative drip if you keep talking like that,” Claire said, fondly. “That had better not be work that’s coming home with you.”

               “The city never sleeps! The fight for justice has _bullshit_ hours!”

               “Uh huh,” Claire replied, unmoved. “Your schedule’s not the only thing that’s full of shit.”

               “You wound me. I thought you took an oath—”

               “I’m buying you a drink, it works out. Get your coat on already, I’m dying for a brew.”  

* * *

 

               Claire Temple was beautiful, accomplished, and totally uninterested in Foggy—which suited him just fine, all things considered. She volunteered occasionally at the community health clinic downstairs, and they’d met when her boyfriend—the only pleasant bartender in Hell’s Kitchen—needed some legal help from Mr. Hart. They’d spent time chatting about the details of the case, and making small talk as they passed each other on the stairs, or waiting for the train.

               “Do you want to grab lunch sometime?” Foggy asked her.

               She looked at him, unimpressed. “You _know_ I have a boyfriend. You _met_ him.”

               “Not like that,” Foggy said, waving his hands. “I mean, I do too, off and on—I just uh, don’t—don’t have all that many friend-friends these days…”

               Claire, like all true healthcare professionals, was a bleeding heart. It’s why she and Luke made such a great couple. Luke Cage was the nicest guy, and also very, _very_ strong; it really was a winning combination, and Foggy wished Claire nothing but happiness with him. God knew his tastes ran in a similar vein—

               _Stop. Stop thinking about it._

               “Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you?” Claire asked, slicing directly through the bullshit.

               Foggy smiled at her, but she knew him well enough to spot the strain beneath it. “Just a long day at work, that’s all—”

               “Yeah, but you’ve been putting in crazy hours for weeks now,” Claire said, fixing him with an inescapable stare “You’re avoiding something.”

               “Says who?”

               Claire put her glass and the bar and turned to him. “I can do this all night if I have to.”

               “It’s just—” Foggy’s face fell, his Everything’s-Fine smile falling out of place. “Just a rough day for me.”

               “Oh?”

               “An anniversary.”

               “Today?”

               “Yeah. I thought—I thought I’d be fine, but I woke up and it’s—It’s all over the news again…”

               The gears in Claire’s head turned quickly— “holy shit, you knew that guy who died in the Roxxon fire?”

               _That guy who died in the Roxxon Fire_. That’s all he was anymore. He didn’t even leave any bones behind.

               “That guy’s name was Matt Murdock,” Foggy said, wearily. “We were roommates for seven years. He was my—my, uh— my best friend.”

               “Holy _shit_. I had no idea—Foggy, I’m so _sorry_ —”

               “Mmm.” Fuck this. Fuck everything about this. Foggy counted out a fair handful of bills and laid them on the bar. “Hi, sorry, can you just leave the bottle with me? I promise I’m good for a tip. Two glasses, please.”

               “Foggy—”

               “No, I'll tell you about him,” he assured her. “I’m gonna tell you _all_ about him. But I’m not going to do _this_ , this sad survivor bullshit—"

               “I didn’t—”

               “Tonight,” Foggy said, “we’re going to celebrate, OK? Celebrate the life of a good friend, and a good person—someone who deserves to be remembered as a real life person, not just for the shitty way he died.”

               The bottle and glasses arrived. “Thank you. I really appreciate this.” He pours himself a double, and clinks it gently against Claire’s beer.

               “To Matt,” he says, then downs it. It’s awful and he coughs, thumping his chest.

               “May the memory of his fuckery never fade—" he chokes out.

* * *

 

               “Man, what are you doing out here?” Daniel asked, frustrated. He sat on the concrete steps to the back door, watching the man go to town on his hotdog. The man never sat in his presence, only sometimes squatted down on his heels—as if he thought he’d have to run off any second.

               “I have work,” the man mumbled around a mouthful of food.

               “Work? Bullshit. Nobody with a nine-to-five is eating out of the fuckin garbage.”

               The man scoffed. “Not that kind of work. Honest work.”

               “Uh huh. Construction? Day labor?”

               “Nights.”

               “Yeah? Security guard?”

               The man seemed to consider this for a long moment.

               “Maybe. Depends.”

               “On what?”

               “What you think is worth protecting.”

               Daniel rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you’re all wise and shit. Tell me what you’re doing out here, for real. You’ve got a story, I can feel it.”

               “Everyone does,” the man shrugged. “All God’s creatures.”

* * *

 

                Foggy braced himself against the wall in the alleyway. “Claire I’m gonna—I’m gonna puke but I have to tell you—”

               “C’mon, we can make it to your place from here—”

               Nope, they couldn’t. Claire laid a comforting hand on his back while he heaved, the top of his head pressed into the brick. Foggy coughed, wiping the last of the vomit form his mouth with his sleeve. Sober Foggy will be _pissed_ with him. “We weren’t just roomies.”

               “It’s only a couple of blocks—”

               “Listen!” Foggy shouted, still bent over double. “Me and Matt we weren’t—just—fucking roommates—”

               “Foggy—”

               “He was my _best friend_ ,” Foggy punctuated the words by pounding his fist against the wall. “My best—goddamn—friend—”

               “I know—”

               “You don’t _know_! Nobody fucking _knows_! My best friend in the WHOLE FUCKING WORLD—”

               There was a distant ‘shut the fuck up!’ from the apartments above them, but Foggy flipped them an unsteady, mis-aimed middle finger.

               “Fuck _you_!” he bellowed back.

               “It’s time to go home,” Claire was saying, gently. “Let’s go home and sleep it off—”

               “’S not a home. Me an’ Matt had a _home_ ,” Foggy slurred, as Claire tried to get him back on his feet. “Fuckin—twenty-somethin and playin house. We had a _plan_. We were gonna live together—have our own—fuckin—law firm—but he _died_ in a _fire_ —"

               Foggy slid out of Claire’s grasp, sitting in a crumpled heap in the alley. He pressed his hands against his face.

               “If I knew—if I had known—he was goin to a—a place he’d never been before—he _couldn’t fucking see,_ Claire—”

               “I know, you told me—”

               “—I would have gone with him—”

               “You couldn’t have known—”

               “Matt didn’t need a babysitter,” Foggy mumbled, his head falling forward, chin against his chest. “Matt didn’t _need_ anyone to take care of him. But I—I would have. I would have done that for him.”

               Claire knelt in front of him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I know,” she said, gently.

               Foggy opened his mouth, but all his years at Columbia couldn’t give him the words for what he was feeling—what he needed to say—what he wished he could have said—

               He put his face in his hands and started to cry.

* * *

 

               It was well into the night shift when Daniel saw the man again.

               “Holy shit! What the fuck happened to your fucking face?”

               The man held his hand out, offering something in his clenched fist—it was a few crumpled dollars, dirty and slightly bloodstained. “Something frozen,” he grunted, without preamble. “Peas, ideally. Please.”

               “That’s fucking nasty, dude, I think you need more than peas—man you need a _doctor_ —”

               “No doctor. Please.”

               Daniel gingerly accepted the filthy, creased bills. “No health insurance at that job of yours, huh?”

               Beneath the rust-dried blood, the man looked exasperated. “I can go somewhere else.”

               “Nah, you’re already here.” Daniel disappeared into the store, reappearing with a handful of items. “I got you some shit—”

               The man reached over and plucked the bag of mixed veggies from his grasp. “Only gave you three dollars.”               

               “Man, _please_ let me spot you a fucking Tylenol. You look like half the city took turns beating your ass.”

               The man huffed in what might have been laughter. “Accurate.” He pressed the frozen bag against his face, wincing at the touch.

               “You won’t even let me clean it?”

               “Will you leave me alone if I don’t?”

               “Hell no.”

               The man considered a long moment, then pulled the frozen bag away with a sigh. Daniel cracked open the hydrogen peroxide and approached the man, gingerly—this is the closest he’d ever actually gotten. He could see evidence of other wounds, now that he was closer—yellowed bruises, a thin white scar on upper lip.

               “Somebody used you like a punching bag.”

               “You should see the other guy.”

               “What the fuck ever. I’m gonna get up in there—” Daniel hesitated, then pulled aside the matted curtain of hair—he hoped to God he didn’t get lice trying to do a good deed— the man closed his eyes, but Daniel got a brief look at them and—

               “Oh shit, dude, I think—I think something’s wrong with your eyes—”

               But the man snorted again. “No shit.”

               “Shut up, this is serious—”

               “It’s not new. Don’t worry about it. Do what you’re going to do.”

               The hiss of the peroxide fizzing mingled with the man’s sharp hiss of discomfort. “Don’t be a pussy,” Daniel scolded. “You dragged your half-beat ass all the way here, you can handle a band-aid.” Daniel leaned in closer, examining his handiwork—holding his breath in an attempt to avoid the man’s rank smell.

               “This one might need stitches, man.”

               The man considered. “You have steady hands?”

               “What—? No! Fuck no!”

               The man shrugged. “Sorry. Would be an imposition.”

               Daniel rocked back on his heels. “There’s a clinic nearby—its like, two blocks up. They’re open 24 hours—I think you should go.”

               “No.”

               “I can spot you some cash—”

               “No,” the man repeated, firmly. “It’s too close.”

               “Too close, what the fuck—?” but the man slapped his frozen peas across his face once again.  He turned to go, but paused.

               “Thank you,” he said, gravelly-voiced. “You have—a gentle spirit. A good heart. It will be rewarded.”

               Awkward. “Oh,” Daniel said. “Uh—thanks? Can I at least getcha a band-aid or—?

               But the man melted into the shadows, and he was gone.  

* * *

 

 **ACCIDENT OR ARSON?  
** One Year Later, and Still No Answers for Roxxon Fire Survivors

At a press conference yesterday, members of the joint investigation in the fire at the Roxxon West Unit Laboratories revealed few new details about the ongoing search for answers in a fire that caused millions of dollars in damages and took one life. Investigators refused to definitively cite a cause for the blaze, which burned for well over twenty-four hours before being contained, and questions linger […]


	2. Wildcard Up My Sleeve

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to clarify that I broke the timeline of basically every Marvel property, especially all the Defenders, and its all very jumbled and confused and I'm drunk with power! I do it because I can! 
> 
> Thank you everyone for the feedback, you are very kind :)

**MISSING MATT MURDOCK**   
Conventional wisdom says he perished in the flames. But one year later, the details of his final hours remain a mystery

\--

Where is Matthew Murdock?

The question seems crass—he is almost certainly dead. Left to fend for himself in an unfamiliar building, unable to navigate by sight, disoriented by the heat and the smoke— it doesn’t take a detective to come up with a theory about his demise. And yet, after a year of painstakingly sifting through the rubble, not a single sign of him has been recovered. Cadaver dogs and forensics teams have poured through the wreckage again and again, without so much as a tiny fragment of bone to show for it. Of course, the blaze that tore through the complex burned much hotter than a conventional house fire—perhaps hot enough to vaporize human remains, like the world’s largest cremation oven.

‘Perhaps’ is not enough for some. In the months after the fire, rumors abound—Murdock’s increasingly unstable behavior before the fire, a lack of eyewitness sightings by survivors combined with only a brief appearance on Roxxon security footage, seem to indicate he may have left the building before it began to burn.

But if Matt isn’t dead, then where is he?

* * *

 

               Matt raises his head from the barrel of burning trash, turning towards the sound of the sirens. Distant—10 blocks out—

               --9 blocks—

               En route. Coming fast.

               “Cops,” he announces, and leans down and grabs his bag.

               “Man where the fuck are you going—?”

               Matt doesn’t answer the question. He’s already jogging down the narrow alleyway to where the fire escape is, and from there he’ll head back to the safehouse. He’s done enough reconnaissance tonight. He leaves his companions—the discarded and forgotten of the city—to their own devices.

               Distantly, he listens to them confer:

               “Don’t listen to that guy, he’s fuckin crazy. He thinks he talks to Jesus.”

               “Whoever he’s talkin to never been wrong. I’m outta here.”

               Matt heaved his pack up onto the roof, then hauled himself up after it. They were scattering—good. He could hear the patrol car, the slight whine of the break pads—Simmons tonight. The club would see judicious use.

               Whatever you have done unto the least of these—

               One day. One day a fire that consumed the entire city, the flames that burnt away the refuse and left behind the righteous.

               Matt vaulted across rooftops, the night air running cool fingers through his shaggy hair, plucking at his clothes as his arc bent downwards. He was out of Hell’s Kitchen now, laying low, hoping to cover his tracks and confuse his trail. He wrenched open the rooftop access of his safehouse—a vacant apartment, a snowbird’s summer home—one of many.  

               Matt’s squatting would reflect poorly on the property listing. He smiled humorlessly at the thought.

               But his smile vanished as quickly as it had come—for every night he was here, sifting through documents with agonizing slowness, the war raged on outside—blood poured in the gutters, an inexhaustible fount, while he struggled to make his tablet (on his person when he ‘vanished’) accept the stolen documents, relay their contents to him via voice command—

               Hours of work, and it seemed as though he got no closer to his target.

               The bowels of the city were populated by vast, sprawling networks—some with national or international reach. Money, Matt learned, recognized no borders—its leapt over fast-moving water, it slithered its way past crowded checkpoints, it needed no papers other than the stilted portraits of dead presidents. Here, a lieutenant took marching orders from an opulent dacha ten timezones away and guns flooded the streets. Here, a paper was signed with all-American names in a soaring Manhattan skyscraper, and tenements vomited their residents onto the streets, prey for the wolves and their nine-millimeter teeth.

               He saw the webs, intricate spider-silk that lead back to one place—but where—

               Matt slammed his hand against the wall, frustrated. The people were screaming outside the walls of this penthouse, the sirens wailing like the banshee—here, there, death and decay and the stench of rot—

               Matt pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He should be with them—out among the people, not sulking in stolen opulence—

               But he had learned quickly that he couldn’t sleep propped up against the wall and fight with the strength he needed to win. He would have to choose his battles—to compromise—

               He put his hand on the soft sheets of someone else’s bed, clenching them in his fist. Sacrifice, yes. But compromise?

               Never.

* * *

 

               Dawn broke over the city. Matt sat on the rooftop, feeling the sunlight creep up his face as the sun peaked her head above the horizon, fearful of what new horror the city had dreamed into being that night. The daylight would sober the people, bring them to their senses—they would hide their depravity away, keep it to the shadows until the darkness returned. The stark, antiseptic stare of the sun let people believe they were safe just a little longer.

               But for Matt, it’s always night.

               Below him the gears of the city whine and grind as they begin to turn. He is listening, carefully, for the steady heartbeat below him—the one he knows so well. The breaths are steady and slow. He slept tonight—and slept soundly. That’s good—he didn’t always.

               Some nights were longer than others.

               Matt resisted the temptation to climb through the open window, to disable the alarm and let him sleep a little longer—

               The alarm rang, shrill and merciless. There was a grumbling—there always was—and the sound of a hand clumsily fumbling until it found the snooze button. A few minutes more.

               “Good morning, Foggy,” Matt murmured.

* * *

 

               The work was endless. Every corner he turned had more violence, more evil to be purged. Here, an associate of the underworld grooming hapless young recruits. Here, a landlord demanding sex when money was not enough to sate him.

               Here, a gang of well-to-do young men making sport of a homeless man.

               Matt threw the last one into a wall, dodging a wild haymaker easily and bringing his forehead against the brittle cartilage of the other man’s nose with a wet _crunch_. Blood spattered on collared shirts.

               “What are you, an Avenger?” their victim slurred.

               “You’re drunk,” Matt assured him. “This didn’t happen.”

* * *

 

               Matt had other duties—he stopped by the corner store on 45th, when Daniel was scheduled for his break.

               “What’s good?” the young man asked him, with sunny enthusiasm.

               “Very little,” Matt assured him. It was strange, when he had made a regular habit of theft in the course of his work, that he felt most guilty about taking this man’s freely-given gifts.

               “Don’t say that,” Daniel said. “It’s a good-ass day. I _crushed_ my English test.”

               Matt nodded. “Well done. I never doubted it.”

               “ ‘I never doubted it’,” Daniel repeated back, lightly teasing. “Get out of here!” he stretched, and Matt heard the joints in his shoulders creak—too much stress there, for his age. “I could definitely go to college with those grades.”

               “And then?”

               Daniel groaned. “Please don’t fuckin start. I don’t even know if I’ll get in.”

               “Thought your grades were good.”

               “Shut up,” he shot back, fondly. He was quiet for a long moment, and Matt rubbed a trail of mustard from the edge of his beard. Then:

               “It’s just—I never thought I would actually get this far, and now I don’t really know _what_ to do next. Scary shit, man. I know I wanna make money, but—”

               Matt shook his head. Daniel scoffed: “sorry, man, I’m not eatin hotdogs for the rest of my life. Big money, man, Wall Street money—lawyer money—”

               “Blood money,” Matt muttered, harshly. Daniel paused.

               “OK,” he said, trying to lighten the mood. “Sure thing, Zuccotti Park. I get it, I’m about it, ‘Banks Got Bailed Out, We Got Sold Out’—”

               Matt turned, and the curtain of hair fell slightly—perhaps revealing one of his eyes: “How many throats are cut on the altar to Mammon? Would you wield the knife?”

               For once, Daniel’s sunny demeanor seemed to turn sour. “Man,” he said, frustrated, “What the _fuck_ is that supposed to mean? I’m tryin to get out of Hell’s Kitchen so I don’t have to do that shit! My mom’s gotta eat, you know? If we get bought out by fuckin—fuckin 7-11 or some shit—I won’t let her eat out of the fuckin dumpster!” 

               Matt took another bite and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Daniel seemed awkward—as if taken aback by his outburst. Matt wasn’t. He recognized a strong heart. He pushed himself off the wall he’d been leaning against, standing before the stoop where Daniel sat.

               “This,” Matt said, tapping Daniel’s forehead, “and this—” here he jabbed a finger into the boy’s chest, where his heart hammered boom-boom-boom “—are your treasures. Be careful what you pawn—these don’t come back.”

               “You really hate lawyers that much, huh?” Daniel asked, weakly.

               Matt’s mouth turned in a downward line: “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

* * *

 

               Someone was watching him.

               Matt pretended he hadn’t noticed—continued to aimlessly paw through the dumpster, keeping his senses focused on his stalker. A woman—slight, he thought. Deodorant but no shower. Stank like bourbon. Suspended between buildings, four stories up…

               No rope. No wire.

               Unusual.

               _Like me_ , the thought came to his head, unbidden. Unsettling. Alarming.  He knew, of course, that there were others—people with abilities outside the realm of human capability. Stick had sought him out for—well, who knew what war the old man had tried to recruit him for. Matt had been waging his crusade single-handed, with no allies or hope of reinforcements.

               He knew about the woman. Was she watching him because _she_ knew about _his_ secret? Matt tensed. She seemed to notice, and froze.

               He feigned sight, craning his neck to peer into all the wrong corners, before giving a theatrical shrug and turning back to his work.

               She relaxed. Not like him, then—Stick would have taken that mistake out of his hide—

               He closed his mind to that memory, grounding himself in the present. The woman suspected something of him. Why else would she follow him?

               Matt paused—was this an agent of his enemies? Was he known to them? Untrained as she was, was this woman one of the adversaries Stick had spoken of? Stick’s war, now materializing in the midst of his own—?

               He heard the woman take a long pull from her bottle. Smelled like bourbon.

               She belched. A wet sound, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

               Bizarre.

               What was he supposed to make of _that_?

* * *

 

               The woman wasn’t the most pressing of Matt’s problems.

               He had taken the man’s weapon, broken his arm, and was poised to make him think very, very carefully before walking his streets with a gun again when—

               “That’s enough.” The intruder—tall, bass-voiced, solidly built—towered over Matt and the kneeling man. “You can leave. He won’t do any more harm.”

               Matt’s lip curled. “I’ll make sure of it.”

               “You won’t,” the man said. “There’s such a thing as overkill.”

               “This filthy piece of garbage pulled his gun on a _child_ —”

               The man took a step forward and Matt struck—but his hand struck smooth-solid-unyielding what is that—?

               “You won’t like beating on someone who can take it,” the man warned him. “Get out of here. I’m taking your garbage in so the _system_ can handle it.”

               Matt clenched his teeth, but he knew he couldn’t win—his hand wasn’t broken, but he wouldn’t risk another strike. Retreat was his only option.

“You’re not a cop. You’re not any different form me. I am doing the _very_ same work—"

               “No,” the man said, firmly. “You’re not.”

* * *

 

               Enemies behind every corner, more every day. The woman watching him. The man with steel for skin. It had been one year, and every day brought more obstacles—more adversaries—and he felt the corrosive tendrils of doubt wrap around his heart. How long would he be asked to serve this purpose? How much more must he give? His victories found no traction, only giving way to greater tasks—

               Was his work not enough?

_Oh you of little faith_ —

               “I hope you’re not doing what I think you’re doing,” the voice—soft, feminine, concern and disbelief in equal measure. Matt said nothing, taking a step backward as she approached him.  “Because it _looks_ like you’re getting ready to try and re-locate your own shoulder.”

               “No good like this,” Matt replied. He should leave—but climbing wasn’t an option, and his back was to the wall.

               “You’re behind a health clinic,” the woman said, disbelief increasing. “Just come inside. We can help you—”

               “No money. No time. Please leave.”

               “I work here,” she said, frankly. “I don’t have to go anywhere.” 

               Matt gritted his teeth and said nothing. He was caught—by a civilian. At least the others were like him—gifted, if untrained. This was his own fault—stupid, stupid, stupid—

               “You really won’t come in inside?” the woman said, plaintively.

He shook his head.

               “Well,” she said, “if you went inside, I could do this in a nice, sterile environment.” She withdrew a pair of nitrile gloves from her pocket and slid them on.

               “Nice, legal, aboveground. This? This is some shady shit I am about to do.” She approached him, offering a gloved hand:

               “Sir,” she intoned, with an edge of sarcasm: “I’m trained in first aid. May I assist you?”

               He hesitated for a long moment. The woman knew Foggy—he’d followed her before, making sure of her good intentions. She possessed no suspect ties, posed no threat to him, but she was close—too close—

               Had he not called out for allies? Was he ungrateful when his pleas were heard?

               “Be quick,” he muttered. To her credit, the woman was a true professional—she spent her time sizing him up, carefully probing his injury until she was certain she wouldn’t do more harm than good.

               “Last chance to get some local anesthetic so this doesn’t suck so much,” she offered. “Going, going—alright, gone. Jesus. One, two—”

               She moved on two—the pain was considerable, but nothing Matt hadn’t endured before. He exhaled, sharply, focusing himself with his next breath.

               “Well, you certainly are tough,” the woman said, admiration in her voice. “Now that you proved it, will you come inside for a check-up? I’m seeing things that concern me.”

               _That makes one of us_. “No,” he says. Then: “but thank you.”

               “Are you afraid of someone?” she asked, softly. “Whoever’s hurting you? There’s a legal clinic upstairs, I know a guy who can help—”

               “I don’t need help,” he said, curtly. Then, because she had just set his shoulder: “Not—that kind.”

               She considered for a long moment. “If you changed your mind, would you come back here?”

               “Yes.” Not quite a lie, but there was nothing that could deviate him from his path.

               “Well, I’m here Wednesdays and sometimes Fridays. So if you need a friend—”

               Matt had a friend. He was waiting for him to finish the work, while Matt wasted time with niceties. “I’ll remember,” he said, sliding past her. He paused, considering her for a long moment.

               She had been sent to him. She watched over Foggy in his stead. He should be kind.

               “Thank you, Claire.”

               “Anytime,” she said, with genuine warmth. Then: “Wait, how—?”

               But Matt was already limping his way back to his safehouse.

* * *

 

Daniel had asked him before, soft and worried: “why are people hitting you? Don’t say they aren’t—you look like a bag of ground meat.”

               Matt had only shrugged—people assumed he never hit back. He let them think what they wanted.

An elegant disguise, a lie of omission.

               “You don’t have to take that shit,” Daniel told him, frustrated. “The cops—”

               Matt laughed in his face at that.

               “OK, point,” Daniel conceded. “But like…” he struggled to find the words: “—just because this city a firehose of shit doesn’t mean you have to stand in front of it. You don’t have to just _take_ it.”

               Matt shook his head. He was called to the violence, to the filth and the suffering—to place his body in front of that fount, to take the blows for those who would shatter beneath them. To hide himself away was cowardice.

               Daniel was right about one thing, though—this was a city fallen into sin and misery, but none of them had to stand there and take it.

               He would fight back.

               Now, Matt heard the click of the gun cocking, smelled the oil and sulfur—felt his blood pound in his ears, so loud it threatened to drown out everything else. The bells on the door clanged a frantic warning as Matt crashed through it, not caring that it cost him the advantage of surprise.

               He threw one of the attackers into a display, hearing the chaotic domino crash of falling shelves. A gun fired—overwhelming stench, overpowering noise, ringing in his ears—but Matt dodged the wild blows that followed. A fist met his chin, and Matt staggered before surging forward and grabbing his assailant by the collar. He slammed the man’s head against the counter—once, twice—he grabbed the man’s shoulder and rolled him face-up.

               These men thought they were petty little kings of this city. They had come here to extort protection money.

               “Money won’t protect you from me,” Matt hissed.

               His fist cracked across the man’s face—again—and again—and again—

               “That’s enough, man!” Daniel was shouting, somewhere outside the haze of blood—fear-stink—adrenalin. “He’s not moving anymore—that’s enough—!”

               Matt dropped the limp body, reeling himself back in. He’d acted rashly—the barrier between his disguise and his true self was splintered.

               “I was hungry, and you fed me,” he muttered, unable to face the frightened young man behind the counter. “I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink.” The other attacker had long since fled, and there were sirens in the distance. It was time to go.

               Matt paused, hovering in the doorway.

               “Thanks for the hotdogs.”

               He would not be back.

* * *

 

**CONT: Investigation into Lawyer’s Death Leaves More Questions than Answers**

The theories range from the outlandish (Murdock was Federal agent under deep cover) to the offensive (Murdock was a conman who wasn’t actually blind) but they all agree on one key point—Matt Murdock’s death or disappearance was not an accident, but a deliberate act to silence him. The timing of the fire with the revelations about Roxxon’s pollution of the New York City municipal water supply—pollution that allegedly stemmed from the very same West Unit Labs that were so thoroughly destroyed— is exactly the kind of coincidence that makes the ears of a conspiracy theorist perk up. The departure of Murdock’s close (and some say only) friend from Landman & Zack in the week immediately following his death only adds more fuel to the fire.

While the intricate red-string creations of online sleuths are easy to dismiss, some of their questions are harder to explain away. Why doesn’t Matt appear on _any_ security footage after entering the front lobby of the West Unit? Why do none of the survivors report seeing him during the evacuation? Why did none of the first responders manage to find him—or his body— as they made their last sweep of the building before it fell?

The evidence that Matt knew something was afoot at L&Z before the ship went down is sketchy at best. NYPD’s white collar crime unit refuses to confirm or deny the rumor that he approached them as a whistleblower. His former colleagues report that he seemed agitated by something the morning of the fire, and that he’d been moody and withdrawn in the weeks leading up to his death. But at the end of the day, all we have is hearsay—rumors that vanish into the air like smoke. In the absence of security footage or forensic evidence, we may never even know what his final hours were like; not even where he took his final breath.

For now, it seems Matt Murdock has taken his secrets to the grave.


	3. Thick Heart of Stone

TO: **editorials@dailybugle.com**  
FROM: **F.Nelson@emailconnect.net**

SUBJECT: Please Fuck Off

To Whom It May Concern:

               I, like many other residents of New York City have enjoyed the reporting of the Daily Bugle for years. However, your op-ed page is a huge fucking garbage fire. It sucks ass. No one set the fucking Roxxon fire, you callous piece of shit. Nobody’s covering up dick. It was a tragic accident and it killed the only decent fucking person on the desolated fucking godforsaken island of Manhattan. That’s it! Go fuck yourself, and also fuck your mother!!

               If this persists I will consider taking legal action to prevent any more libelous slurs against the memory of my friend, and by extension me, because you fucks won’t leave me out of it what the fuck!!  

               In conclusion: lick my taint.

               Franklin Nelson, Attorney At Law

* * *

               Foggy opened his eyes, and was immediately rewarded by a brilliant stab of pain that tore across his brain meat.

               “Ah, fuck,” he groaned.

               “Good morning to you too,” Claire replied, throwing open the blinds and flooding his apartment with sunlight.

               Claire? Why was Claire here? They’d gone out for a drink and then—

               “Oh, _fuck_ ,” Foggy repeated, pressing the heels of his hand to his eyes. His mouth tasted like vomit, and he felt like shit—which was appropriate, because he was _definitely_ an asshole. “Oh fuck, Claire, I am so, so sorry—”

               “It happens to the best of us,” Claire shrugged, setting a glass of water on his bedside table. “Although you really should have tapped the brakes before the trainwreck.”

               “Ugh, you even held my hair for me—”

               “Can’t say I missed that part of undergrad.”

               “Have you had breakfast?” Foggy asked, swinging his legs off the bed and slowly making his way to a seated position. “At least let me get you something—”

               “You threw your wallet at me, so I got myself a cruller and a latte on your dime. We’ll call it even. _You_ are finishing that glass of water and these aspirin before you get anything else.”

               Foggy, the model patient, chugged his water like he’d just finished an Olympic sprint. “I think I cried out the entire eighty-percent of me that’s liquid” 

               “It didn’t help with the dehydration,” Claire said, softly. “Speaking of…”

               “Please,” Foggy moaned. “Please. I assure you I am already at maximum suffering right now. I am paying dearly for my party-fouling crimes.”

               “I’m sure you are,” Claire started, diplomatically, “but you have to know you can’t just bottle that back up again.”

               “Mmm, I think I have to if I want to get anything done at work today—” Foggy paused, mid-thought, then grabbed his alarm clock. “ _Shit—_!”  

               “Nope, stay right where you are—”

               “I have to go in today, we have new clients—oh my God I’m so FUCKING late—”

               “I called your boss,” Claire today him, and Foggy halted in a tangle of sheets. “He said he ‘understood completely’. He’s a nice guy.”

               “What did you tell him?”             

               “That you had food poisoning.” 

“Did he buy it?”

“No, but he laughed and said he’d rather you blow off steam this way than quit and move to Vermont like the last guy.”

               “Greg and his fucking dairy farm,” Foggy said, lying back down in defeat. “I hope he chokes on his farm-fresh milk.”

               “But you’re not bitter.”

               “Do you know how long I had to hear Mr. Hart wax philosophic about ‘squeezing the teat’? Fuck Greg.” Foggy’s stomach roiled from his sudden burst of emotion, and he draped his forearm across his eyes.

               “And fuck me,” he said, softly.

               Claire hovered just out of his perception, clearly choosing her words carefully. “Listen,” she said. “Grief—can be a process. Sometimes its just a slog. But if you need someone to talk to—before you get wasted and puke on your shoes—”

               “Thank you, Claire,” Foggy cut her off. “I—really appreciate you for putting up with me. I really, really do. I owe you more than a cruller—”

               “You don’t—”

               “But I’m doing OK,” he said. “I realize I didn’t uh, paint you a very convincing picture, but I _am_ moving on. I’m—I’m in the process of building myself a little post-Matt life.” _Just room for one_. Foggy swallowed. “It’s—not what I thought I’d be doing right now, but I’m getting by.”

               “Surviving and thriving are two different things.”

               “Yeah,” Foggy agreed, wearily. “They sure are.” This did not appear to appease Claire, so he gathered his strength and went on:

               “I have—closets that I haven’t cleaned out yet. Shit I still need to sort. Metaphorically, not—well, in the _literal_ sense, I do very much have all Matt’s shit packed in boxes and shoved in my closet, but figuratively…” he trailed off, grasping for the right words.

               “There’s things I’m not ready to say out loud yet,” he finished, quietly. Then, to lighten the mood: “Not even to drunkenly scream them at a Times Square Elmo.”

               “If I get a call from the precinct, I’m leaving you in the drunk tank,” Claire warned, but she smiled fondly at him. Then: “Some things take time. Whenever you’re ready…”

               “I’ll let you know,” Foggy agreed. “What I _am_ ready for is coffee, so let me just heave myself out of bed—”

* * *

               Claire stayed to chat over coffee, but unlike Foggy she had a life, and she took off before lunch. Foggy now found himself with a dull, persistent hangover and an unscheduled day off, and wasn’t really sure what to do with all this unstructured time. He considered sprawling on the moth-eaten sofa in his bathrobe and feeling sorry for himself—

\--but doing nothing felt so…decadent. He walked the perimeter of his small apartment—once, twice—

               He stopped in front of the closet.

               “Bad idea, Foggy,” he said aloud, as he slowly turned the handle. “Be smarter, Foggy.” The door swung open, heedless of his own advice.

               There they were, exactly where he’d left them when he moved in. A tower of hastily-assembled moving boxes, a cardboard monument to his loss.

               Matt was the one who waxed poetic. If he saw this shit in any other apartment, Foggy would say it was a hoarder origin story.

               Matt had a line about hypocrites, what was it? Logs and splinters?

               “Matt, Matt, Matt. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia,” Foggy joked into his empty apartment—but who else could he think of? There was his name, blaring at him in messy scrawl across each of the boxes. Foggy imagined they should be sealed with biohazard tape—WARNING! THIS BOX CONTAINS MEMORIES OF YOUR DEAD BEST FRIEND!

               Foggy pressed his hands against his face. It had been an entire year. If he didn’t do something about it, he could go his whole life lugging around Matt’s junk. A millstone around his neck. A waste of prohibitively-expensive New York City closet space.

               He had the whole day to himself. He could go through the shit, sort some of it out—maybe some could go to charity, like Matt probably would have wanted…

               Or he’d do what he always did, which was get one box open and spend the next few hours down memory lane, getting shitfaced and making a bigger mess than he started with.

               “Not today,” he said, and gently shut the closet door. “Not ready yet.”

* * *

               Twenty-four hours and a generous handful of aspirin later, Foggy was back at the grind. He’d hoped to slip into work early, catch up on some paperwork before the clients (and his boss) showed up—

               No dice.

               There was already someone waiting for him, hovering outside the door to his darkened office. Foggy clamped down his irritation—only to have it disappear as she moved into the light, and she saw her red eyes and tear-stained cheeks.

               _You and me both, sister_ , he thought, _you and me both._

               “Are you Mr. Hart?” she asked, her voice hoarse.

               “Nope,” he answered, dredging up some cheer for her. “I’m Santa’s elf. How can I help you?”

               “I think—” she swallowed, trying to hold back another round of tears. “I think I need a lawyer.”

               “Well,” he said, gesturing to the door. “You’ve come to the right place, Miss—?”

               “Karen,” she mumbled, her eyes downcast. “Um—Karen Page.”

               “Well, Miss Page,” Foggy rifled through his pockets, trying to fish out his keys, “here at Hell’s Kitchen Legal Clinic, we offer only the finest lawyering and law-adjacent services, so if you’d like to step inside—”

* * *

               Foggy set the box of tissues in front of Karen, along with a styrofoam cup of water. She accepted both, gratefully.

               “That sounds really scary,” he said, settling back in his seat. It must have been really hard to tell me that,” he flipped to a new page in his notebook, pen hovering over the pad:

               “But I’m not sure I understand what happened—can you tell me your story again?”

               Karen took a long, shuddering breath, steadying herself, then launched back into her story:

               She’d asked a guy from work to meet her for drinks—she wanted to discuss something out of the office. Halfway through her drink she feels a little woozy, and steps outside for a cigarette. Then—

               “He grabbed me,” she said, her voice shaking. “He—” she pulls back the collar of her blouse, and Foggy can see yellow bruises just beginning to form. “I—I tried to um, struggle, but he uh—he slammed me against the wall, and I was—um, dazed? I don’t really know…” she trailed off, looking up at Foggy uncertainly. Foggy nodded, urging her on.

               “I hit my head pretty hard,” she said, “and I maybe hit it again when I fell, because he—dropped me…” she gave him a long, measuring look, bloodshot blue eyes weighing him, gauging to see whether or not he was still with her.

               “So what happened next—I mean, I know what I saw, but maybe—”

               “What did you see?”

               She offered him a fragile, shaking smile—more hysteria than humor. “There was a, um,” she shifted in her seat. “I think—I think he was a homeless guy? He must have—he must have grabbed the guy who attacked me, and he was—he was beating the _shit_ out of him—” her voice quavered, then steadied: “they—they fought, but the homeless guy got the upper hand—he—he really beat the hell out of the other guy—”

               “The man who attacked you?”

               Karen nodded. “I know…I know this sounds crazy…”

               It sure did. But Foggy was a local boy, he’d _definitely_ heard crazier. This was New York, after all. “OK, so—you were attacked, and a good Samaritan overcame the bystander effect and intervened with the uh, power of his fists. What happened next?”

               “I was still—I was just lying there,” Karen went on. “I couldn’t—everything was spinning. But the guy—the homeless guy—got finished, and the other guy wasn’t moving, and then he—he came over to me—” Karen swallowed hard. “And I tried to—crawl away, but he grabbed my arm— I don’t, um, its all a blur now, I don’t remember exactly what he said…”

               “As best as you can recollect, Miss Page.”

               “OK—he said something like, ‘your wrist isn’t broken, stay away from hospitals’,” her breath hitched in her throat: “he said—he said they were watching me—following me…” she trailed off, glancing fearfully around the room:

               “He got up and banged on the door—shouted something, I think he was calling for help—and then he just—he just fucking took off. Some guys came out of the bar and found me—they helped me up—Paul was drunk—except, now I think we were drugged— but anyways he called up both a cab—I—I saw your sign, and begged the cabbie to let me out here…” she laughed again, small and helpless—

               “—and I waited until you showed up—”

               Foggy put his pen down. “Are you telling me this all happened just a few _hours_ ago?”

               Karen nodded, looking like she was on the brink of a fresh new round of tears. Foggy let out a slow breath.

               “You need to see a doctor,” he said, gently.

               Karen shook her head. “He said they were watching me—”

               “I—look, you I don’t mean to malign the guy who saved your life—he’s probably great!—but he doesn’t sound like the most… _sane_ individual,” Foggy said, delicately. “He’s a hero, but it sounds like he also needs help.”

               “They knew where I was,” Karen said, fearfully. “They knew—” She broke off, her expression closing.

               “Knew—what?” Foggy asked, cautiously. Karen was silent, now staring resolutely at the desk. “Miss Page, this conversation is privileged. You can tell me—”

               “They knew I had something,” Karen said, almost inaudibly. “I had…some work stuff. With me. The man—who attacked me—he stuck his hand—” her voice quavered, but she pressed on—“He stuck his hand down my shirt—in my bra—” she squeezed her eyes shut, and Foggy let her take a series of long, slow breaths.

               “I had—a flashdrive. It fell out, in the um—struggle.”

               “Where is It now?” Foggy asked, gently.

               “The—the homeless guy took it. I don’t….know _why_ …”

               Karen went for a tissue, and Foggy gave her some time to sob while he turned this all over.

               “I—need—help,” Karen managed to gasp out between sobs. “Please—I don’t know what to _do_ —”

               Foggy sighed heavily. “You’ve been through a lot today,” he said, evenly. “But, Miss Page—legally speaking, I’m not sure there’s all that much I can do for you. If you know the identity of your attacker, I could file a restraining order—”

               Karen shook her head. “I don’t,” she said, ragged. “He wore a mask…”

               Foggy blew out a long, slow breath. “After you’ve had medical attention, I can block out some time to down to the station with you to file a police report—”

               “No,” Karen said, quickly. “No cops.”

               It was a common refrain among his clients. “They’re the only ones who can—”

               “Please,” Karen begged, “ _please_ , no cops.”

               Foggy sighed. “That’s your decision to make,” he said. “But other than that, I’m afraid I don’t have any legal options for you.”

               Karen squeezed her eyes shut, and a few tears slipped out, running down her white-and-red splotched cheeks. “OK,” she said, quietly. “I—understand. I just—”

               “We don’t open for another fifteen minutes,” Foggy said, gently. “You can stay here until we close, if you need to.”

               Karen nodded, gratefully, as if words would only bring more tears. Foggy waited for a few awkward moments, trying to gauge when to make his move:

               “Are you afraid of retaliation because you lost company property?” he ventured.

               Karen cracked an eye open, looking at him warily over a battered Kleenex. “Something like that,” she said, evasively.

               “If you have any kind of NDA paperwork, I can take a look at it,” Foggy offered. “It probably doesn’t apply thieving warrior hobos.”

               Karen cracked a fragile smile. “I think,” she said, her voice wavering, “that maybe I just—want to get out of the City for a little while—”

               “You and me both,” Foggy said, with a little more candor than necessary. 

* * *

               Foggy called Miss Karen Page a cab—she would go back to her apartment, she decided, pack up some things, try to be out of the City by nightfall. He urged her to stay, to file a police report, but Karen had her mind made up—“I think I just need to—plan my next move somewhere else.”

               Foggy opened the door for her, ever the gentlemen, and gently took her hand. She started, but he slid her a business card—and a generous wad of bills.      

               “I’m sorry I couldn’t help you today,” he said. “The ride’s on me. If you need anything else—well, you’ve got my number. You know where to find me.”

               Karen smiled at him again, this one stronger. “Thank you, Mr. Nelson.”

               “Keep in touch,” Foggy said, gently shutting the door. He tapped on the roof, and the cab pulled out into the ever-present stream of traffic.

               He looked at his watch—officially opening time, and people were lining up at the door. No time for a blueberry muffin.

               “No good deed,” Foggy muttered to himself, cheerfully. “Back to the salt mines.”

* * *

               Another beautiful woman knocked on Foggy’s door that day—which, while unusual, wasn’t really something worth remarking on—beautiful people have problems too. Still, something about the encounter seemed a little…odd.

               “So, you’re Foggy Nelson,” the woman cooed, with a cheer that belied her heavy eyeliner-black hair-Morticia-Adams-if-she-modeled-for-Versace look. “I was really hoping you could help me with something…”

               “We’ll certainly try, Miss…?”

               “Dilinger,” the woman said, extending a hand. “Well—I guess its back to the maiden name now…see, my ex-husband has hired these scummy lawyers at Hogarth, Benowitz and Chao…”

               “Douchebags,” Foggy agreed, sympathetically. Hey, he’d already burned his bridges.

               “The biggest douchebags,” Miss maiden-name-O’Houlihan agreed. It was the first thing out of her mouth that seemed sincere—and after their session wrapped up, Foggy concluded it was the only statement she’d made that he truly, unequivocally believed.

               “I can look into it,” he said, “but this is a little outside my field of expertise—as of right now, I’m not sure there’s all that much I can do for you.”

               The woman’s face fell—in a sullen, childlike pout that seemed so weirdly out-of-place. “Not even against those assholes at HBC? Don’t you have something on them?”

               “Only their lack of moral fiber,” Foggy quipped, “and their subsequent strained bowel movements.”

               “I…see,” she said, primly irritated. “Well, I suppose I’ll let myself out—”

               “I can take some time to review the details, see what we can do—”

               “No,” she said, waving a dismissive hand. “That’s alright—I think I got what I came here for.”

               But as she let herself out the door, Foggy had a nagging feeling she wanted something more than legal advice.

* * *

               Someone had been in his apartment.

               The door stood, just slightly open, the chain closure snapped neatly in half. He grabbed the bat he kept next to the door, creeping slowly through his small apartment—but nothing seemed out of place. No missing valuables, nothing tossed—everything seemed more or less exactly how he’d left it.

               Great. A creepy end to an already weird day. He thought about Karen, and her insistence she get out of town, and wondered if he should follow her.

               “Well, if they wanted me to get got, they should start paying their guys overtime to wait around,” he muttered, digging around for the number of the building super. “All the self-respecting goons clock out at five, I guess. Hey, Mr. Lawrence? Yeah, this is Foggy, in 607? So I think someone broke in to my place…”

              _It just gets harder, Matt,_ he thought. He walked to the fridge, phone pressed to his ear, and pulled a beer out of his fridge. 

_It's just harder everyday._

* * *

TO: **ben_urich@dailybugle.com**  
FROM: **F.Nelson@emailconnect.com**

RE: Your side of the story

               Mr. Urich,

               Thank you for your condolences and for sharing your memories of Matt with me. I am sorry for the harsh language I used in my letter to the editor. Sometimes I feel like last person who remembers Matt as a person and not the object of some nutcase InfoWars jerkoff material.

               I must, however, decline your offer of an interview. I don’t have anything to say to the people who couldn’t help Matt when he was alive. He’s dead now, and he deserves to rest in peace.

               Yours,

               Franklin Nelson, somewhat embarrassed that I sent that first email

(in my defense I was a little drunk)

(I don’t take it back though. I stand by what I said)


	4. My Sins, My Own

MIDTOWN MANIAC STRIKES AGAIN   
The Masked Menace Strikes Terror in the City

               TERROR IN THE STREETS as New York is plagued with yet another vigilante nutjob. With rumors of assaults, thefts, and break-ins flying thick and fast, this violent lunatic seems everywhere at once—and yet the police have yet to confirm a credible sighting…

* * *

 

               There are superpowers, and there are skillsets. Some people find out they can flip a car and neglect to cultivate _any_ other useful abilities—hence, the viral videos of caped crusaders who can’t change a tire worth shit.

               Jessica Jones had been known to flip a car when the occasion called for it, but in her line of work all she really had to do was open her fucking eyes and take notice of the world around her.

               Like, for example, she could be out on yet another cheating husband case (Penis Patrol was unsavory but it kept the lights on) and spot something else worth investigating.

               “God, that’s so gross,” she said to herself, watching the bum in the alley unzip his fly and get ready to piss on the wall. She balanced her camera on her belly, and brought her hand up to her mouth, fully prepared to blow her cover by shouting GO TO STARBUCKS—

               Something stopped her—instinct, maybe. Keenly-honed PI intuition. Morbid curiosity. Whatever it was, she ignored the marital infidelity (she had more than enough pictures of The Deed) and turned her full attention to The Case of the Homeless Guy’s Enlarged Prostate. Jesus, how long does it take to pee—?

               “Son of a bitch,” Jessica muttered, watching the man turn his head, as if covertly looking over his shoulder. He wasn’t taking a piss—he was doing the exact same thing she was.

               That bum was _surveilling_.

               Kind of genius, honestly—who looks twice at a homeless guy, much less one relieving himself in a grimy back alley? She’d say she should have thought of it first, but she wasn’t about to squat down and expose herself to the nastiest grime New York had to offer—

              Shit—she must have missed something. The bum was on the move, zipping up his fly—

              --retreating to the shadows—

              --scaling a drainpipe holy _shit_ —

              Jessica watched, open-mouthed, as the bum shimmied his way up three stories and clamor gracefully onto the rooftop—only to take off at a full run, jumping over an alley how was no one else _seeing_ this shit—

               “Jessica,” she said aloud to herself, “did you forget you’re holding a camera?” Of course, she probably wouldn’t have—the work camera took work pictures, and nothing else. Still, she’d seen a lot of crazy shit, and that easily ranked in to the top five.

               What the fuck was that?

               “File it away for later, Jones,” she muttered. “One thing at a time.” She raised her camera, pointing it back at the window she was supposed to be watching—

               “Shit,” she hissed. Her perp fled the nest. She dropped, landing in a crouch in the alley below, camera carefully balanced in one hand.

               Ninja bum would have to wait. One thing at a time.

* * *

 

               In Jessica’s line of work, it paid to be nosy.

               You never knew what you might need to know.

               “This conversation we are having?” Hogarth began, severely. “We’re not having it. It is not happening, it never happened.”

               “It never does,” Jessica drawled. “What is it this time?

               Hogarth looked primly unamused, but obligingly pulled a manilla folder from her desk drawer. “I hope you understand I am contacting you because you are my very last option. The _very_ last.”

               “Persona non grata, it’s a running theme—”

               “Ruminate on your personal failings later. I need you to find someone.”

               Jessica raised an eyebrow. “Subpoena?”

               “Oh, he is in much more trouble than that,” Hogarth said. Her voice was level, but her eyes flashed in a way Jessica recognized as the precursor to some advanced-level legal dickery. “You are on a strictly need-to-know basis on this one, Jones, and there are some things you simply do not need to know.”

               “How about who the fuck I’m looking for?”

               Hogarth opened the folder, revealing a blurry surveillance image. “Him.”

               Jessica picked up the image, and squinted. “You want me to find bigfoot?”

               Hogarth opened her mouth, then closed it again. She took a long breath. “This is all the information I have pertaining to this…subject. Track him down.”

               “I’m not fucking magic, Jerri,” Jessica said. “Do you at least have a name? An alias? A general fucking locality—” Jessica broke off, bringing the picture close to her face. “Oh, shit.”

               “Oh?” Hogarth asked, in that I-am-extremely-interested-but-desperate-not-to-tip-my-hand way. “What do you see?”

               “This is that kung-fu bum I saw the other night.”

               Hogarth closed her eyes. “Jessica, I do not have _time_ —”

               “I’m not fucking with you. I saw your guy.”

               Hogarth released a long, slow breath. “Did you?”  

              “He skulks around Hell’s Kitchen,” Jessica said. “We…keep similar hours.”

              “Mmm. I’m sure you do,” Hogarth offered. “How…convenient.” She leaned forward, getting that hungry, sharky look in her eye: “ _Find_ him. Find out who he is, where he operates out of, everything you can—”

             Jessica thumbed through the surveillance images, each one more useless than the last. “Why?”

             “Excuse me?”

             “Why?” Jessica repeated. “You don’t want him to appear in court. You don’t want him on the witness stand. If he did something illegal, then you need to get a hold of a actual fucking cop—” Jessica paused, and offered her own sharky smile.

              “—but maybe you don’t want the cops to know about this?”

              “You are skating,” Hogarth hissed, “on the very _thinnest_ of ice.”

              “Tell me what he did,” Jessica demanded, “or I walk out.”

               Hogarth looked like she wished she could use her mind to strangle Jessica to death—or maybe like she was actively trying. After a long moment, she broke: “ _Fine_. This man— stole something.”

               “Something?”

               “Information. Files, physical and digital—an entire hard drive.”

               “Sensitive, I bet.”

               “The privacy of our clients is of the utmost importance. Leaks are bad for business.”

               “Going to jail is bad for business,” Jessica said, pointedly.

               Hogarth didn’t blink. “I wouldn’t know.”

               “Hah. Alright,” Jessica said, tucking the file in her back. “I’ll find your hobo. But my silence costs as much as my work.”

               “I would pay so _much_ money for the privilege of your _silence_ ,” Hogarth bit back, nastily. “Go. This has taken long enough.”

* * *

 

               Finding one homeless guy in New York City was harder than it sounded—even if this one did crazy shit like backflip off fire escapes.

               Jessica cased the camps, the huddled masses around burning barrels, the ones stranded outside subway turnstiles—something about it stirred her, in a place she thought too flooded by corner store bourbon and discount whiskey to function. Surely someone was looking for these people—surely _someone_ wanted to bring them back home.

               So far, no one had. Either they couldn’t afford her finding-services—or they didn’t give a shit.

                Both options made her feel like fucking garbage.

                “Shit!” she hissed under her breath—there it was—the flash of long, matted hair—disappearing down an alley—

                She turned the corner, but the alley was empty.

               “Son of a bitch!” she brought her fist down on a garbage can, leaving a rounded dent.

               That’s what she got for getting maudlin.

* * *

 

               It was hard to keep a low profile when Hogarth called her non-stop.

               “Jerri,” Jessica said, putting the phone to her ear, “I can’t talk to you right now because I am _real goddamn busy_. I’m on a job—you know, the one you fucking _hired_ me to—”

               “I need results.”

               “This guy’s slippery,” Jessica replied, “I’m doing what I can, but he’s a pro—whoever you pissed off this time is _really_ fucking pissed. Maybe you should just suck it up and beg for mercy—”

               “It’s not an option. Where are you now?”

               Jessica rolled her eyes. “I’m doing surveillance. He keeps popping up on the corner of 47th and—”

               “—near the rat-trap legal clinic?” Hogarth interrupted.  

               “Maybe,” Jessica said. She was currently on the roof of said rat-trap. “Are you looking at Google maps? I do not for a _second_ believe you’ve ever been to Hell’s Kitchen—”

               “I’m familiar with Reginald Hart,” Hogarth replied. Her voice made it clear it was not friendly familiarity—but then, when was it ever with Hogarth? “And his little apprentice, the Landman and Zack burnout—is he there right now?”

               “I don’t fucking know! You told me to look for the ninja!”

               “Find out if they’re connected,” Hogarth commanded. “Nelson knows more than he’s saying.”

               “Knows about _what_ —?”

               But Hogarth had already hung up. Jessica rolled her eyes and resisted the urge to toss her phone into traffic.

               Fine. Whatever. This technically counted as a lead. Hogarth seemed to think this Nelson guy knew about _her_ guy—and considering that not a single other goddamn person in the whole fucking city could give her any info, she might as well shake him down.

               It could never be fucking _easy_.

* * *

 

               Foggy Nelson was a sad little donut. Squishy and sugary—

               -- but empty in the middle.

               Jessica knew a thing or two about being hollow inside, she knew the signs—he got up at six, dressed and out the door by seven, sat down to work at eight—she watched him put in ten hours, twelve hours—watched him pat a client on the back, offering gentle assurances as he ushered them out the door, only to sit at his desk and put his face in his hands—

               Yeah, she knew the drill. And there it was, five o’clock, Irish up that cup of coffee, Mr. Nelson, makes it all go down just a little easier.

               Jesus. Is that what it was like to tail her? At least she dressed cute.

               It was all so very depressing, even more so because it was so _boring_. Other than the after-hours happy hour paperwork, he was sober as a judge with his clients and in court. Never met any shady characters—except the people he represented, naturally. But maybe that wasn’t fair—these weren’t Hogarth’s clients, with too many ex-wives fighting for a share of what was in the offshore account. For the most part, these were people who actually _could_ go to jail, but shouldn’t. The rogues’ gallery at Landman and Zack, as Jessica understood it, were generally the opposite.

               Foggy Nelson, martyr for the little people. No wonder Hogarth hated his guts.

               Jessica, for the most part, was just sick of him. He worked all day, then he shoved papers in his thrift store briefcase, went home, and worked until he fell asleep—sometimes in bed, sometimes hunched over the table. Every once and a while he’d get hammered and stand in front of his closet, staring at something Jessica couldn’t see, only to stumbled to the couch and pass out.

               That was hard to watch.

               Jessica was ready to throw in the towel, honestly—she’d toss his apartment, find out what was in that fucking closet, then call Hogarth and tell her to chase her own goddamn hobo, and also go fuck herself.

               “C’mon, crazy conspiracy,” she muttered, jiggling the door handle. “C’mon, something juicy—”

               Jessica had poked around online—she was a professional, after all, she did her research—but hardly anything she found was worth reading. The blaze at the West Unit labs had sparked a thousand online theory brushfires, each one dumber than the last—most of them centered around the supposed connection between Murdock, Landman and Zack, and the Roxxon Corporation.

               Murdock worked for the law firm Roxxon hired, and was doing errands for them when he died. Foggy was involved with him because they were coworkers and roommates. There’s your connection, dummies! That will be five thousand dollars, please.

               But as she rifled through his drawers and cabinets, Jessica couldn’t help but hope to stumble across _something_ —some kind of FBI dossier, cooked books, a receipt from Parish Landman’s coke connect, fucking _anything_ to make all of this worth her time.

               Naturally, she come up with a big armful of jack-shit.

               “Alright closet,” she muttered, “you better be good—”

               But behind door number two was only a sad little shrine to Nelson’s codependency. _Jesus_. Jessica pressed the heel of her hand to her face, taking a long slow breath to keep from slamming the door shut. Would _nothing_ shake loose in this fucking case? She was balls deep into Foggy Nelson’s personal tragedy, and it was starting to wear on her. God, she needed a drink. She knew this place was stocked, where did he keep the good shit? She glanced around, but something caught her eye--

               There were two picture frames on Nelson’s bedside table. One of them had about a thousand people in it, blond and pudgy and pleasant-looking, she assumed that was the larger Nelson clan. The other—

               Nelson’s college look—metalhead hair and a soul patch, come _on_ —was objectively hilarious. He already looked goofy enough, why make it so much worse? The picture captured him almost certainly  drunk, mugging for the camera, his arm wrapped around—

               Well, Jessica presumed that was Matt Murdock. How many blind guys could Nelson know? She’d seen the headshot in the paper—who hadn’t? The tragic dead lawyer had been grist for the news mill for a solid month. But that Murdock seemed fucking joyless, grim and stern. This one smiled with his mouth open, turning his head to press it into Nelson’s shoulder.

               Cute. Sad. Still not a lead. Why was she still looking at this picture? Jessica reached out and ran her fingertips over the smiling faces—

               A runaway truck, a chemical giant, a crooked law firm, a Columbia grad, a heartbroken roommate, a suspected arson—

               --a man in the shadows with a secret agenda—

               Here were the pieces. Why couldn’t she make the picture?

               “What did you know, Murdock?” Jessica murmured. “What am I not seeing?”

               As if _he_ could tell her. She had to get out of here—Nelson’s depression lair was starting to get to her.

* * *

 

               The thing about being a PI is that when you’re doing a good job, you find the leads—but when you do sloppy work, the leads sometimes find you.

               This is less convenient than it might sound.

               She cut through the alley, skirting aclusterfuck of foot traffic outside an obnoxious pop-up restaurant. She was walking head down, hands shoved in her pockets, nothing-to-see-here-folks, and so maybe she missed something—

               A slight creak above her head—

               A breeze that carried a whiff of rancid BO—

               One second she was upright and walking, the next she was on the ground, face pressed into the concrete, with the man she was supposed to be hunting kneeling on her back.

               “ _Fuck_ —” she managed to wheeze, “fuckin—”

               “What do you want with him?” a voice hissed in her ear. God, his _breath_ —

               “Who?” she coughed, trying to size up her options. She felt an arm snake around her neck.

               “Tell me why you’re stalking Nelson,” the man hissed, “or I’ll snap your neck.”

               _Good luck_ , she thought, taking advantage of their humiliating tableau to roll her eyes. “I don’t want anything with him, dipshit, I’m looking for you.”

               The grip tightened. “Why?”

               “You know why, fucknuts.”

               “Who sent you?”

               “Your mom—”

               “ _Who sent you_ —?”

               As much fun as that was, Jessica decided it wasn’t going to get her anywhere. She twisted, making it seem like she was struggling to free herself—then rolled, jerking suddenly, with a core strength the bum clearly wasn’t counting on—

               --in his defense, few did—

               --and managed to struggle free. She threw a wild punch, and the man jumped back—it made the shaggy hair in front of his face sway, and she got a fleeting look at his furious, gritted-teeth snarl.

               “ “Midtown Maniac’, huh?” she asked. “Yeah, I can see it. Jameson’s got a knack.”

               He went right, and she didn’t turn fast enough—Jesus, he was fast—and the blow got her in the mouth. “Fuck—!” her exclamation was cut off by a boot in the stomach. She weathered the blow, staying upright, and surged forward—a move the other man easily ducked.

               This job was such _bullshit_.

               “I am not getting _paid_ enough for this,” she growled, as they circled each other. She tasted blood in her mouth—if she lost a tooth, she was going to see Jerri’s personal dentist. The bum came for her again, but this time she was ready—he dodged, faster than seemed possible, but she was also faster than possible and she hit like a train, and her fist caught a glancing blow on the side of his face. It was enough to send him to the wall, and she heard his head collide with a _crack_.

               Usually, that was enough. But the bum seemed to recover, shaking his head—he turned back to her, and she saw a trickle of blood running out of his nose.

He put his fists up.

               “You want some more?” she taunted. Maybe a little too confident—he feinted, and then one of those defiant fists struck her face again, god FUCKING dammit—she dodged—another hit—

               “Fucking _stop_ that—” there, she got him in the chin, and he staggered—came at her again, a blow, a miss—

               Her fist found his mouth—his nose, a nasty crunch—she was still pulling her punches, or he’d be dead, but she wasn’t giving him love-taps, either. A little taste was usually enough to put a grown man on the ground and keep him there.

               This guy was a glutton for punishment.

               She sent him to the ground, and booted him hard in the ribs—the stomach—he groaned, a very satisfying sound, but only rolled over—trying to get his feet beneath him—

               “Stay down, Rock,” she said. “Know when your ass is kicked.”

               “I won’t let you hurt anybody,” the man wheezed. “The lawyer—doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

               _After you tried to break my neck for a little B &E, I kind of doubt it_. Jessica’s highly-attuned PI senses detected a half-assed lie.

               “We’re going back to my place,” Jessica said, inching forward, “we’re gonna have friendly talk, and you’re going to tell me what the _hell_ is going on—”

               “Oh shit! A fight!”

               Jessica turned—ah, fuck. There was a crowed gathering at the mouth of an alley—she saw cell phones pointed her way, camera-first. Fuck! Definitely time to scram. She turned back—

               Somehow, in the seconds that passed, her bum managed to drag his ass down the alley and out of sight. “Shit!” she hissed. She ran, turning the corner—nothing. “Shit, shit, shit—” she barely glanced around to make sure the coast was clear before jumping, grabbing a fire escape and hauling herself over the edge—

               There—a battered figure sailing over the rooftop, disappearing down the other side, out of sight. Jessica stood on the roof, panting—and sure enough, the cherry on the top of this very large shit sundae, there was the sound of a siren in the distance.

               “ _Fuck_ your ninja shit. Fuck this whole convoluted shitshow. I want a rematch,” she muttered, pulling out her cell. “Next time I see you, it’s going _down_.”

               First things first. She punched in the number—“Jerri, listen. I need an appointment. I think I have a concussion—no, you listen, this was an injury I got in the fucking line of duty—”

               She needed her head checked. She needed to be sure.

               Because she was pretty sure the guy who tried to kick her ass was the supposedly blind, supposedly _dead_ Matthew Michael Murdock.

* * *

 

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL  
Vigilantism is not the answer—but it depends on who you’re asking

               Things are heating up in the underworld.

               Rumors have swirled the past six months—whispers of a new hero on the streets of New York, not sequestered in a high tower but down in the gutter with the rest of us. Police blotters give witness to baffling scenes—here, a group of gun-runners pistol-whipped with their own wares, and here, a flesh-peddler with his own flesh in bad condition, left on the sidewalk in front of Memorial General. Sources say the most hardened crime lords are looking over their shoulders, fearful they may receive an appearance from the big man himself—the lyrically-styled Devil of Hell’s Kitchen.

               But they’re not the only ones.

               The grapevine is on fire with a steady stream of gossip—crooked lawyers on retainer for corrupt officials quietly reporting break-ins, thefts—even the occasional whispered (but never formally filed) assault. Someone is out there blurring the lines of legitimate and unsanctioned, grabbing white collar and blue collar criminals in hand to knock their heads together.

               Who are we to complain? […]


End file.
